WHEN former Airdrie United striker Brian McPhee signed on for Dumbarton on Friday morning, he chose a vision and a challenge.

The vision was to help win promotion for the Sons, and the challenge was to prove that his boots are still potentially golden.

Arguably this could be 36 year-old Brian"s last job in senior football, but the articulate Maryhill fireman is looking forward to it with relish.

He lives happily with partner Jennifer, son Jordan and daughter Laura, in Rutherglen. He is also very happy being a fireman.

`I love the job,` he told me with real enthusiasm in his voice. `It puts everything into perspective.

`I recall attending a fire in Maryhill which had major media coverage.

`It was a bad one, yet the next Saturday I was playing for Hamilton Accies and they won promotion. You could never separate such wide ranging emotions.` In his earlier years Brian admits he was only partly interested in football.

`I played for Rutherglen Glencairn as an amateur and I enjoyed it, but I never had any illusions of becoming a professional footballer,` he said.

That changed one night in a pub in Rutherglen where, at the time, Brian was working. Let him take up the story.

He said: `This customer, in casual conversation, asked me if I would like to train with Queen"s Park, just to keep up my fitness. I agreed, and I was signed up after my first bounce game with the club.`